Dormant passions come to life

My guest Debbie Irwin is living her dream life and she knows it! Debbie pursued her first dream of being an actress by moving to NY City 30 years ago. After a couple of years of performing children's theater, classical comedy in parks and in the projects, and a walk-on part on All My Children, she was ready to move on. She felt she had given herself enough of a chance to live her dream that she would have no regrets. But  Passions never die.  They just lay dormant.

After 3 kids, a menagerie of pets, jobs as a PR person, and stockbroker, and many years later, she asked: “What am I going to do?” Her kids were still relatively young (13, 11 and 8), but old enough to handle her taking on other work. She sought work she felt passionately about to have the energy and commitment to excel, and that was flexible to allow her to continue being the productive head of the household.

That's when, as luck would have it, she discovered the career of doing voiceovers. Debbie knew she had found my new career in the form of her old passion-- acting, just in a new form. No stage, just performing at a microphone, in a sound booth.

To quote Debbie: “So here I am, the wheel has come full circle, but I'm on a new, higher plane than when I first landed in NYC. I'm living my dream; I just had no idea it would look like this. I love my work, and there is no such thing as nights or weekends for me-- every day is another opportunity for me to grow, learn more, develop my business, and Everyday I get to play.  How lucky am I?!?”

Debbie is the voice of the Statue Of Liberty, and voiced the Telly Award winning video for the Orange County Performing Arts Center (OCPAC), now called The Segerstrom Center for the Arts.